Master of the Universe Jamie Dimon went before Congress this morning, tugging his well-compensated forelock and explaining how terribly, terribly sorry he was to have had J.P. Morgan Chase, the death star for which he is currently employed, soak the system for $2 billion in losses through the kind of exotic trading that every Master of the Universe pinky-swore would never, ever, happen again after similar shenanigans nearly ate the world. First, he read out the conditions of his nolo plea for being pretty much the kind of same hubristic, reckless high-roller that all of them are, despite the fact that I have to listen to the kept press of the financial-services industry — hello, CNBC! — repeatedly tell me what a good guy he is. Gaze in awe:

What Went Wrong:

We believe now that a series of events led to the difficulties in the synthetic credit portfolio. Among them:

CIO's strategy for reducing the synthetic credit portfolio was poorly conceived and vetted. The strategy was not carefully analyzed or subjected to rigorous stress testing within CIO and was not reviewed outside CIO.

In hindsight, CIO's traders did not have the requisite understanding of the risks they took. When the positions began to experience losses in March and early April, they incorrectly concluded that those losses were the result of anomalous and temporary market movements, and therefore were likely to reverse themselves.

The risk limits for the synthetic credit portfolio should have been specific to the portfolio and much more granular, i.e., only allowing lower limits on each specific risk being taken.

Personnel in key control roles in CIO were in transition and risk control functions were generally ineffective in challenging the judgment of CIO's trading personnel. Risk committee structures and processes in CIO were not as formal or robust as they should have been.

CIO, particularly the synthetic credit portfolio, should have gotten more scrutiny from both senior management and the firmwide risk control function.

Translation from the original Ass-Coverish:

1) The people who worked for me didn't know what they were doing.

2) The people who worked for me didn't know what to do when things went bad because they didn't know what they were doing in the first place.

3) The people who worked for me didn't know how to manage the things that went bad because they didn't know what they were doing in the first place.

4) We were replacing some of the people who didn't know what they were doing in the first place with some new people who didn't know what they were doing in the first place, either.

And, 5) Jesus Christ On My Private Jet, I hired me some meatheads.

If the guy fixing my roof screwed up as badly as JP Morgan did, and then presented me with this list of excuses, there would be really bad stuff posted about him on Angie's List, all's I'm saying.

See, Jamie, here's the deal: Nobody trusts you bastards anymore. I'm not talking about that kept press, or by the walking sublets you have haunting the halls of Congress. I mean out in the world where people are still suffering the aftershocks of what the lot of you did to the country over the previous decade. Maybe this matters to you. Very likely, as long as you have the two entities I mentioned in your crisply tailored pocket, it doesn't. But there were some interviews in a Democracy Corps poll yesterday that ought to give you pause:

Romney just strikes me as kind of out of touch. (Non-college-educated man, Columbus, OH)

(Steve M. at No More Mister Nice Blog did a fine job explaining why this poll is clear evidence that abandoning attacks on Romney based on the latter's career at Bain Capital was politically idiotic.)

It is considered declasse in our higher politics to mention this, but there actually is a class war underway in America, and it doesn't need politicians to stoke it. It happens in millions of little battles every day, over mortgages, and college loans, and retirement, and the simple, granite-like impassibility of the country's elites in the face of what's happening to the great mass of people in this country. Now, it's possible that our firmly purchased political system may be able to continue to divert the energies of that war in the directions most amenable to maintaining the status quo. (Blame the black people, the regulators, the drum circles, public school teachers, the Community Reinvestment Act, Van Jones!) But, sooner or later, someone's going to be desperate enough — or bold enough — to grab that energy and ride it to glory, and we all better goddamn hope that person has a good heart, because those kind of things can go awfully badly wrong. What the Wall Street casino is playing with is not house money. It belongs to all of us. They are gambling not merely with currency, but with the stability of the political system. Someone is going to pay.